Into the West
by sakurasencha
Summary: Evelyn Napier convalesces at Downton Abbey. Set between episodes 2.03 and 2.04.
1. Dusk

_It's no secret that I love (torturing) Evelyn Napier. What's less well known is that I take particular interest in soldiers and their journeys, and I really wanted to explore that sans the often times overwhelming effects of the romantic subplot. Also I've never written anything in first person and wanted a go._

* * *

**Dusk**

The final memories were vivid. Fierce wind rattling my pack, the alert jumpiness of my mount, and a sharp, desperate voice barking out a suicidal command: "Capture the farm, at all costs." Heed not their higher ground nor superior armaments. Whether life or limb, sacrifice it all to the devouring head of God, King, and Country.

I rode in the lead, unable to see my men as they were felled like insects by the mighty slaughterer, the killing machines that had ushered in the horrors of modern warfare. My mount skid over a patch of slippery mud and I perceived the high pitch whistle of an incoming mortar to my right flank only a second before impact, the blast radius enough to knock me from my saddle and catapult me to the ground.

The packed, sodden earth greeted my face with an underwhelming thud. I was hardly cognizant of the immediate swelling blinding my left eye, for the sheer volume rendered me deaf in a moment, the heavy brisance exploding like luminescent confetti in my distorted vision. And then – an acute and localized numbness: I could not feel my right leg.

I would never feel it again.

Darkness claimed me. I can recount explicitly the dreams and fancies that danced through the fog of my unconscious. Ladies attired in gowns of white lilies, their raiment shredded till they were nothing but tattered flags of surrender, their purity tarnished with rich spatters of blood. Friends of months or weeks or minutes felled by a single, unlucky shot, or blasted to slivers by an endless fusillade of bombs. Lady Mary running fast after the hounds, unmindful of the mud spewing around her. We wore blood red jackets and hailed, "Tally ho!" as the dogs tore their furry flesh to pieces.

When I finally awoke it was to a striking face, young yet haggard, but both features working in unison to assemble an overall visage that was strangely not at war with itself. Her brows were drawn, I could see, and I initially mistook her visible concentration as in pursuit of some frivolous endeavor, before I realized what she was thinking so deeply upon was how to keep me alive.

My opened eyes did nothing to slow her ministrations or detract her eyes from my wound. I watched her painstaking work for several minutes, feebly rebuffing the smears of red lining her elbows, before falling again into slumber.

Days passed as though swimming through clouds, her face the one constant in the flooding pain. Towards the end I began to think of her as something of an angel, and I in purgatory, waiting for her to escort me to heaven. This scenario I would later deem as preferable when I at last awoke firmly on the divide of complete awareness, and learned the truth.

Her name was Dorcas, the third daughter of a clergyman in Derbyshire. Her fiancé had been killed within the first few months of the war. She explained to me curtly my condition.

"You'll stay here for a few weeks until we can stabilize you." The next part came out as comfortably as if she were administering an aspirin. "We'll try and spare the leg if we can, but it all depends on how the healing goes."

By then I had ascertained, though not yet internalized, the cruel reality. I had forced myself not to dwell on it, but now I dared a single glance downwards. My eyes lingered on the remains of my limb. It was shredded, unrecognizable – useless.

It ended in a compromise. Everything above the knee was spared, and everything below sawed off and tossed into the mud to feed the worms and creatures that dwelt there.

I was a cripple, and in those moments of despair I could have wished myself a corpse.

* * *

In a months time I was considered stable, fit for the strenuous crossing over land and sea, and they packed me into the back of a lorry with other fellows whose condition also warranted a one-way ticket home. We journeyed ever West, to the coast, to Merry Olde England, driving through the rabble over the now red-soaked lands which appeared as though existing in an eternal sunset, muted browns and reds blotting out any of the lush green that must have once thrived there. This once ample land full of vineyards and dairies had been converted to a pockmarked and furcated mineshaft. What little earth remained unspoiled by shovels was littered with the debris of war's natural casualties.

It was a barbarian's paradise, and I prayed that I would never lay eyes on it again.

But here we were, a convoy of lucky blighty ones, escaping these God forsaken lands for that wonderingly whispered Eden – civilization – to which we were all to return, once and for all. I wanted to scoff at the notion, for out of my window indeed did I see the human race at its epoch, every fine display of our power to create, and our even more terrible power to destroy.

And destroy we did – with delight, with pure relish. Soft, murmuring applause and a crisp "Hear! Hear!" when it was first declared that our German ancestors would soon feel the crush of superior English boot heels on their slithering heads. Those cries of glory have since faded to distant echoes of mortar blasts and men screaming in the night. In two years time we have kept our Machiavellian façade, tickling the ears of the populous with brightly colored posters and the weak illusions of inevitable, God-ordained victory.

I gazed out of the window, and forced my mind to empty. Such chilling despair had a tendency to creep deviously upon me, rendering me mute and immobile for hours at a time, and for the most part I staved its attacks by simply refusing to contemplate my life as yet to come. For now and always I would exist in this single moment.

A flutter of color teased the edges of my vision. I stole my eyes from the passing countryside and looked down as a brightly colored set of wings chanced to alight on the outer edge of the stump that once stretched to a full and useful leg. I cocked my head as I lowered a cautious finger. It did not attempt an escape, and I graced its wings with a feather-like stroke. As a child I used to chase after the flighty creatures, my father decrying the pastime as overly effeminate, my mother lauding it as naturally endearing. At the time the only person's opinion on the matter that I truly valued was that of my gentle nurse, who never passed any judgment other than to warn me of their delicacy, to be careful lest I obliterate what I fancy in my exuberance. I wondered what she would make of the scene now, its wings drawn downwards in full extension, bright yellows and oranges stark against the clinical white of my adorning bandages.

One of my compatriots, a Major in the Fusiliers, laughed at the grotesque sight. The harsh bark sent the butterfly flittering away, and broke my nostalgic contemplation. Shaking my head to rouse myself, I looked up to see the man sitting beside me with a deck of cards.

"Care for a round?" he asked.

"Of what?" I answered.

"Gin rummy, if you like."

I frowned at the deck that lay in his hand.

"I don't care for cards," I said.

He began idly shuffling, a small smile tugging his lips as he asked, "Then what do you care for?"

The answer leapt out of my throat without thought:

"Riding."

He laughed. Heartily.

"And hunting as well, I suppose?" He shook his head. I watched it sway from side to side, somewhat mesmerized as I envisioned the painted glass marble that would soon be lolling about under the patch covering the empty right socket. "You'll have to let go of those, I'm afraid. Come now, chap, you must learn to appreciate other pastimes." He proffered the deck once more in my direction. "Cards may very well be a start."

I was not sure why, but in that moment I set my face into my hands, and began to weep.

My friend withdrew his hand holding the smiling face of the joker, and ignored me the rest of the way to the port.

* * *

Blue waters rolled unseen beneath me. Concealed as they were by layers of wood and metal, I could still feel their effects, the swelling amplitude – rise and fall, rise and fall – as if posting the trot, and even this trifling observation was enough to undo me for most of the voyage home.

Confined to a chair below decks, the journey over sea was marginally less bearable than the one over land. I had never been an accomplished sailor, and felt a sickening throb on several occasions.

An attending nurse noticed my discomfort. A pretty girl, she vigorously recommended the fresh, salt-drenched air to cure the ill effects of the waves. But I could not brave the sights above deck: the freedom of the mottled blue sky, the gulls circling loudly overhead, and the ocean that had once been my accomplice in achieving my dreams, which would now bear me back home a literal fraction of myself.

We arrived on the shores, and I touched one foot upon English soil for the first time in nearly a year. My body was processed more quickly than my mind, and I was immediately checked into a temporary facility. Housed overnight in a suffocating atmosphere of moribund soldiers awaiting their final deployment, my body again exchanged hands, and I was taken to a hospital for officers in Middlesbrough.

The hospital was clean, not overcrowded, and well equipped. I settled in as mindlessly as I had managed the rest of the journey, and it was there that I received the first letter from my father after my injury.

_I assume you have arrived safely. Fellows at the War Office had you placed in this hospital at my request. Heard from a doctor friend of mine that is was one of the best. Glad to have you back in England._

My father had a method for letter writing that more closely resembled the truncated verse of a telegram. Never an effusive man, while mother yet lived he still made use of the fully formed sentence; but since then his missives have been reduced to a collection of informatory fragments, leaving no room for eager sons to input any perceived sentimentality.

I read through the letter twice. Two beds over a patient was besieged with a bloody, hacking cough. I turned my back towards him, and tossed the letter onto a thickening pile of unreturned correspondence.

* * *

Mabel Tanners stooped over me with a sturdy clipboard. She was evaluating, as she always did on her morning rounds, poking and prodding my stub, asking highly personal and embarrassing questions, and generally being a nuisance.

She was stodgy, young, and very plain. A mousy girl who could never answer a question directly, she was also one who never once recoiled from even the ghastliest of procedures. As a self-avowed student of the human specimen, I was often amused at how these wartime nurses were all a course in contradiction, Mabel being perhaps the prime example. I once saw her remove a man's arm with unflinching aplomb, and then waver when asked if she preferred clotted cream to butter.

She smiled rather prettily down at me, full lips somewhat ameliorating the severity of the cap pulled taut across her scalp.

"You'll be recovered enough to be transitioned to a convalescence hospital soon," she informed me.

"How much longer?" I asked.

Mabel hesitated. "I shouldn't like to say. Dr. Carrington would know better. But it _will_ be soon, I should think."

Her heels clacked away as I pondered this news. There was no doubt as to my intended destination, Leslie Manor being the closest convalescence hospital and not three miles away. My sensibilities were strangely perturbed at the idea of my future removal. The hospital, however upgraded it was for a man of my rank, had a rawness to it, a rusticity that I had become accustomed to over the long years of residing in a battlefield's habitat. Ornate crown moldings and priceless heirlooms – these would now be foreign lands to tread, however much a native I was to them by birth.

The next morning Dr. Carrington, a tall, middle-aged man who looked the very picture of a professional, confirmed Mabel's prediction. He examined me closely, declared me adequately healed for discharge, and began scribbling something onto a lengthy form.

The pen's ferocity did not abate as he said, "We'll notify Leslie Manor tomorrow morning. You should be moved there within the week." He ignored me a few minutes more as his hand traced down to the bottom of the page, and then, at last glancing up, chuckled. "Old Sir Stanly still grumbles with every new arrival."

Miss Tanners gave her shy smile. "It must be a terrible inconvenience for them."

"Nonsense!" the doctor scoffed. "We must all do our bit, whether fighting over there or taking care of our own back here. They've lived long enough in that big house without inconveniences; I say it's high time they became reacquainted with the real world, and now that they've taken over Downton –"

"Downton?" I interposed unthinkingly. "Downton Abbey? Lord Grantham's seat?"

It was certainly not my business to interject into their conversation, but the doctor humored me. "That's right. It's the latest casualty – I heard Sir Stanly bemoaning it just the other day, says Grantham is somewhat put out by the whole affair." He smiled as if sharing a private joke. "Well. You know those types. I hear it's been requisitioned only a few weeks ago, and that they're still in the process of sorting out all the arrangements."

The doctor and nurse went on to discuss the technical details of such an undertaking. I strove to attend, not wanting to appear ungrateful; but my mind wandered elsewhere – thirty miles southbound, to the majestic structure of Downton Abbey, imposing rooftops rising up as a lone sentinel in the midst of an emerald plain. My last visit to the estate – could it be only five years ago? It felt to be fifty, so much did I feel removed from the benign, staid man that had dined on filigreed china and bathed in porcelain tubs.

"Would it be possible for me to spend my convalescence there?" I suddenly asked.

Mabel blinked, gape mouthed, while the doctor narrowed his eyes, though more in puzzlement than irritation. They were clearly surprised, having long moved on to other topics.

"You mean to Downton Abbey?" he asked.

"Yes."

He hemmed and hawed for a few moments, Mabel mute at his elbow, before issuing his verdict. "I don't see why not. Of course you'll need permission from the Medical Officer overseeing the hospital at Downton, but you'll have no resistance from our end."

I nodded, blinking rapidly. In my past life I was not usually an emotive man, but the strains and stresses of living daily in the reaper's foyer had torn down my proper Englishman's barriers. Both sadness and happiness alike had an enlarged portion of control over my features, and it was the latter emotion that unhinged me now. It wasn't the grandeur of the place that attracted me and which spilled out a few unrelenting tears, but the familiarity. If I must be confronted with my good old life, the life before my gaping absence, then I would have it filled with the same good tokens: friendly faces; congenial, harmless chatter; Lady Mary's face, refreshing as autumn after the stifling heat of summer.

We had written often during the war. She was an able wartime correspondent, who knew exactly what not to say. No droning encouragements or empty platitudes. With her it was always the refreshingly mundane, who they had for dinner or her latest exploits in London. I had no need to have recapitulated the necessary cruelty of my and every other soldier's predicament, nor to be regaled with flat compliments on my supposed bravery. In moments of inactivity, when the quiet stillness abraded our nerves with a kind of bored apprehension, I would loosen my mind by rereading my letters from home – Lady Mary's quite regularly – often using the threads of memory to reconfigure her face, pale and fleeting as a ghost, as I imagined her laughing in that incisive way or rhapsodizing about her latest novel.

She had sent me exactly two letters since my injury, neither of which I had returned. Perhaps since then another had made its way South and had been sent back, un-received and unopened, and I wondered briefly if she worried for me.

The doctor left with Mabel in tow. I requested a paper and pen, and set down to write a letter to my old friend. Her reply came quickly, only two days later, in which she acquiesced with most pleasure to my request to convalesce in their home-cum-hospital. The words were neat and tidy in my blurred vision, and I let the tears fall freely onto the creamy pages as I smiled broadly – the first smile of the year.

Days more passed. My arrival at Downton was to take place a week thence, and I felt a low level of giddiness at the prospected relocation. Soon I would leave this bleached and sparse domicile to be among friends. Perhaps there good feelings could be rekindled enough to feel something like my old self again.

The day before my departure there happened a curious incident. The head nurse, a rather foreboding creature whose habit was starched stiffly enough to withstand a hurricane, informed us all in a clipped tone that someone was most certainly stealing from the morphine supply.

"Just how it's being done, I can't rightly say. But I've already questioned the nurses, and I find it highly unlikely that any of _my_ staff would engage in such behavior." Her all-seeing eyes glared at us each individually. "I'll warn you all now – the doctor prescribes his dosages for a reason."

After she left, a silence falling thick and unsettling, the other invalids and I exchanged glances with varying degrees of confusion. The narcotics lived under lock and key, and it seemed almost impossible that one of us could find the means to pilfer them. And yet I could not disbelieve her.

Within a veteran's hospital there are those frank agonies, cauterized flesh and oozing stitches; but there are others more nefarious, those that go unspoken or hardly even acknowledged: "Phantom pain," the doctor once called it – an insidious torment reserved for the amputee. I only ever felt it on the rare occasion myself, and then only mildly. But there were others less fortunate – men soaked in sweat by the hour and shivering with the pain their minds refused to relinquish. I considered bleakly that perhaps that was our fate, to live on as such specters – minds that did not see fit to quit the battlefield, severed bodies haunting us till the day we die.

Perhaps one of these sufferers was the culprit? Or a kind-hearted nurse who in her tenderness could elevate one evil as preferable to another?

The next morning I had my answer. My belongings were packed neatly, placed at the foot of my bed, while directly across I saw my old friend, the Major from the Fusiliers, bright grins and barking laughs, his body lying dormant across his bed sheets. No explanation was needed. His face was awash in pallor, ashen arms stiff as lead and still with the needle dangling out of its limp flesh.

"Gin rummy?" he would routinely ask of anyone at hand. How often he would beckon us to him, incapable of going anywhere himself on legs that no longer existed.

I cannot recall anyone ever taking him up on the offer.

* * *

Smallish hills and vales flowed in the distance. Like stationary waves, the pristine verdure passed through the window of the motor, untainted by the hallmarks of warfare that raged a short sea away. Much of the countryside remained unchanged from my last visit, and reminded me of happier times galloping through the green landscape as we pulled into the familiar drive of Downton Abbey.

The head nurse was there to greet me, as well as a Sergeant whose face I remembered. His change in uniform at first threw me off, and I had trouble recalling why I knew him. It came to me suddenly.

"Were not you the footman who attended to my late friend, Mr. Pamuk?" I asked.

"That's right Major Napier. Thomas – though it's Sergeant Barrow, now."

"I see. You're in the Medical Corps." I smiled. "How splendid." He must have noticed the sarcastic edge sharpening my tone, for instead of bowing in acknowledgement he smothered a smile.

They wheeled me inside and my eyes roved about the room as they calculated the differences. The luxuries of yore had been successfully merged with the necessities of a hospital. Tapestries were not quite hidden from view, but the unfinished cupboards and distressed tables marred the otherwise lavish home, lending to it a banausic atmosphere that made me feel more at home.

The sound of footsteps beckoned my eyes. I looked over to its source.

"Mr. Napier!"

Lady Mary's cool, crisp voice pervaded the hall, and the interminable layer of ice caking my heart substantially melted.

"Lady Mary," I replied in smooth tones, though the words still dripped more emotion than I intended. I watched her move forward as I examined her. The years had been mostly kind. She still maintained that otherworldly beauty, but the lines in her face were more pronounced and the flesh encasing it less supple. She had aged; this war had aged her – and perhaps something else as well.

"Mr. Napier," she said again after crossing the length of hall. She clasped her hands together. "Major Napier," she corrected herself with a nod.

"Please, "mister" will do just fine. I care not for that particular title." She released her right hand. I took it in my own and we shook in that familiar greeting. Her palm was as smooth as the day I first led her to the waltz at her debut, and I promptly let go.

"Of course. Mister, then," she said. I could sense her visible effort to train her eyes to my face. Lady Edith Crawley, who I just noticed was standing in her sister's shadow, was not as disciplined. Those green eyes strayed down and to the right, accessing my deficiencies, and only years of strict grooming kept me from cursing out loud the pity I saw there.

Lady Mary cleared her throat, and her sister's head snapped back to a more courteous position. "My mother had need to go to Ripon today. She sends her apologies for not greeting you properly."

"None are required, I assure you," I replied. "I am not a guest here, and I don't expect any special treatment beyond what is my due as a patient."

She smiled, eyes dancing. "Nonsense. I care not for what the ledgers say. This is still our home, and you are our friend as well as our guest, if we deem it so." The head nurse looked displeased at the pronouncement, but would not dare to contradict. I smiled. It was comforting to see that some things had not changed. "You must be tired, Mr. Napier. Please, let us show you to where you'll be staying."

Sargent Barrow wheeled me into a spacious, bright room – the former morning room, if my memory served me. Neat beds formed rows lining the length of the walls, a roomy corridor in between down which fresh-faced nurses bent low and walked hurriedly by.

With some prodding the head nurse detached herself to sort out my accompanying paperwork, leaving Lady Mary and her sister to escort me to my designated bed. To my surprise it was Lady Edith who gave me further instruction. "Luncheon is at half past," she said cheerily. "And perhaps afterwards you would like to relax in the library."

"And you must dine with us one evening," Mary added. "My mother absolutely insists upon it."

"You are too kind," I replied. "As I said before, I would not like the appearance of extra favors because I am friends with the family."

"And as I said before: This is still our home. We have our own family dinners, and we are free to invite whom we may to them."

"Yes, of course. I – thank you, Lady Mary. Truly, I thank you."

"You've had a long day. We should leave you to rest and get settled." She smiled, thin sheens gathering across her dark eyes. "We are so…._ pleased_ to have you here. Good day, Mr. Napier."

The sisters paced backwards as I nodded, not trusting my voice further than a perfunctory, "Lady Mary. Lady Edith."

My spirits buoyed, I observed my new home for the number of weeks required to rehabilitate me. The mood was much calmer then the frenetic speed of a hospital. People milled rather than rushed about. I could not place a single face, until scrutinizing more closely I realized that I could. I was mildly shocked to see the third Crawley daughter scurrying through the beds administering painkillers and changing out linen. I barely remembered the girl from my previous visit. She couldn't have been more than sixteen years old, said very little, and blended into the background like a beautiful vase. She still blended into the background, though this time it was more like an ice bucket or something other terribly convenient.

Face drawn, feet constantly on the move, she appeared absorbed in the busyness. I'd heard rumors concerning Lady Sybil before the war, something about pantaloons and wild adventures at liberal rallies. Third hand relays made her out to be quite a mad-cap sort of girl, but upon first hand conversation I was struck by her sweetness of nature.

Ours eyes met, mirroring recognition, and she halted her task to make her way over. "Major Napier? I'm Nurse Crawley," she said in a friendly albeit unsure manner.

"Yes, yes. I remember you."

"Do you? It was so long ago." Her face turned somewhat sheepish. "Of course I knew you were coming, but when I first saw you I wasn't even sure I had the right person."

"My ego shall not suffer unduly, I assure you. And if it at all helps, I don't remember you very much."

She smiled, and the clouds parted. A man could be ruined by that smile.

"You should know how happy we all are to have you staying with us. Mary especially was quite determined to have you here. As you can see I work at the hospital as an auxiliary nurse, and if there is anything you need that requires medical assistance, please don't hesitate to alert me or one of the other nurses."

"Thank you, I shall." Exhausting any mutual territory, we lapsed into awkward silence. I struggled for words, at last landing on, "I wasn't expecting such hands on assistance from one of the daughters of the house. Your presence here has taken me somewhat by surprise."

She smiled again. "Oh, yes. Well, it's not so terribly odd. So many other Ladies are helping out in some way, and I wanted to do my part."

"And do you feel you have?" I asked seriously.

"Yes, yes I do," she replied eagerly. "And even more, I feel…" Her aspect grew reflective. "I spent most of my life practicing piano and embroidery, but now, for the first time ever, I feel truly accomplished."

I nodded. I could understand. It was that very feeling of lethargic inadequacy that had propelled me into the foreign office, that drove me in my pursuit of the career I did not need. When I had first entered, my mind was full of travels and destinies. New and exotic lands enticed me from the dull interior of the British Isles, and what I always felt to be a sad reflection of my own staid persona. Mother, as usual, indulged me. Father opined in many a letter how much he wished I would settle in the country and learn to take after the estate.

It struck quite forcefully then that I would most likely be forfeiting any future travels.

My countenance clouded. Any lifting of spirits was quickly moored back down to harsh reality. Nurse Crawley began to fidget, smiling blithely on, lost in her own dreams, and did not seem to notice my spiraling mood. I discerned she was not a shrewd observer, nor one to suffer idleness for long.

"Please," I said, desiring solitude. "You must be busy. Don't let me detain you from your duties."

She smiled apologetically. "It's close to luncheon. We can bring you a tray here, or if you prefer I can show you to the dining quarters."

"A tray will do. Thank you."

She left. A tray was shortly brought up to me. The fare was hearty and sumptuous, far more than my dismal appetite deserved, and bore me swiftly into a blissful, dreamless doze.

I awoke near dusk. A large, rectangular window sat adjacent to my bed. It faced westward, towards the setting sun. Rays glinted through the panes, stinging my eyes. I did not rise, but watched prostrate as the bright globe shifted to a muted pink, then a dark red, until at last descending past the horizon.

The sky grew black, and I slept once more.

* * *

_Thanks for reading :)_


	2. Twilight

_Sorry for the delay! Things have been rather hectic. And thanks so much for all of your lovely reviews :) And thanks to __**3down1up**__ for her incredible beta work!_

* * *

**Twilight**

_Evelyn-_

_Hope your stay at Downton Abbey is going tolerably well. Mrs. Weatherby's been asking after you. Hopes you'll come down for a while rather than go straight back to London when all is said and done. Hermes getting rather jumpy. Jones takes him out now and again, but he wants for a proper rider._

He never referred directly to unpleasantries. It was not my father's way to court tragedy openly. Instead he would deftly swerve, sidestep – my mother was always "absent," never dead, and I supposed now relations would bear with hearing me described as having "a spot of bad luck." Was it the Englishman's prerogative to circumvent the uncomfortable, or simply his own?

I read through the letter and it occurred to me that I had never told him of the arrangement to have my convalescence relocated to Downton Abbey. I assumed a letter to the hospital in Middlesbrough must have been returned rather than forwarded, and thus informed him of my current address. He made no mention of my lack of response to his letters, and I maintained the status quo by shoving the missive back into its envelope and tossing it onto a haphazard pile of papers beside my bed.

A smiling face rimmed in white fabric approached me.

"Everything is all set up, Major. Are you ready for your morning walk?"

I nodded impassively. My "morning walk," despite transpiring in the hours before noon, was really nothing of the sort. Two weeks ago a specialist had come and had fitted me with an artificial limb, a contraption of wood and rubber overflowing with a tangle of incomprehensible clasps that I still could not properly strap on without assistance. Standing, now part of my daily regimen, was barely manageable, and walking seemed unreachable a goal as flying.

But I was making progress, so Sister Waverly informed me not one hour later. The head nurse promised in time that I would regain my balance, and even teased that perhaps in another week or so I could begin taking my first, tentative steps.

"You'll start off with two sticks, or two crutches, whichever suits you best."

I forbore to mention that two legs were what would suit anyone best. I cast her a soulless stare but she continued to rattle on jovially. I knew that by now she must be quite inured to the withering countenance of the convalescent, having probably treated reams of soldiers just like me: disillusioned, embittered, but with too much good breeding to say so with anything but our eyes and demeanor.

Her mouth continued to flow and my wandering mind barely captured a third of her instructions. All I could focus on was that single, unassailable fact:

I must learn to walk again.

Of course I could not remember how I managed to learn the simple feat the first go around, and the image of me – a grown man, an army Major, heir to the vast fortunes of Lord Brankson – toddling about like a child was too ridiculous and depressing to contemplate for long. I had grown accustomed, whenever this darkness convened in my mind, to transferring my thoughts to the trivial, and pondered the lax maintenance of the shrubbery as Sister Waverly wheeled me back indoors.

Minute recuperation and doleful rumination, often punctuated with bouts of outright melancholy – it was in this fashion that I had passed my first, uneventful month at Downton Abbey, each day melding unnoticeably into the next. Immobility, once an alien concept as it always must be to those hearty and hale, was now the root of my existence. Planted firmly wherever I happened to be deposited, I would sit. I would wait. Activity would flourish around me while I made meager attempts at occupying my mind. Books and parlor games and bawdy conversation amused some; yet those of us who could not dim the relentless echoes of combat adopted other routines. I was lucky in my placement by the window, where I could sit and gaze outside by the hour, watching the static world of the countryside pass from day to day, idyllic and unchanging as a pleasant dream.

If left to myself I might have begun to question if I had ever emerged from that cloudy existence after a well-aimed blast had thrown me from my saddle; but thankfully I was not often alone. Even if I could somehow ignore the oppressive contiguity of other maimed bodies, Lady Mary, who despite not having the instincts of a nursemaid and who was not a frequent presence in the sick rooms, made special visits nearly everyday for my sake. Invariably we chatted about the old days, the days we would rather rehash, with all the appropriate embellishments, than whatever hellish stasis the each of us, England, the entire world seemed to exist in currently.

That afternoon she despaired of the stuffiness, and wheeled me outside to partake of the noonday sun and fresh air. Yorkshire is not known for its benign summers, and she sat on a bench beside my chair as we sweltered under the shade of large oak.

Some summers ago I had once been her suitor, but maturity, a better understanding of ourselves, had since eroded anything even resembling possibility_._ Whatever might have been was long lost, and would never be reclaimed. An unspoken agreement flowed like a calming brook between us. There would always be that indelible warmth in our relationship, but thankfully no burning passion. It made our discourse easy and companionable, and much closer to the truth of our hearts than it might have been otherwise.

Discussion was all about our first encounter, the '09 season, when plunging necklines had been all the rage and she had daringly chosen an off-white frock that didn't spare on décolletage for her debutante ball. We laughed over the scandals made frivolous by time and perspective, when at length she grew increasingly sober, and for the first time ever addressed the actual reason of my stay at her home.

She smiled at me proudly. "I saw you out in the yard yesterday. You seem to be making progress." I could not face her eyes, and refocused to her listless hands.

"So the nurses tell me. Standing upright with two sticks. Not quite a praiseworthy achievement, but I shall thank you all the same."

She acceded my sentiment with a nod. "Perhaps. But then these things take time."

"These things?" I repeated curtly. "You mean a grown man learning to walk again?" I regretted my outburst instantly, and sighed. "Forgive me, Lady Mary. My temper of late is inexcusable, and ill dispensed on you and your kindness."

Her features were at rest but her eyes spoke volumes. "What would any of us be if every thoughtless word was remembered? Not to worry. It is already forgotten."

Stray leaves had accumulated onto my trouser legs. I picked at them wanly in the silence that followed, held them aloft only to watch them fall drowsily back down again, the air devoid of any currents that might carry them away.

"I don't think I've ever forgotten any of your words," I said quietly.

She laughed. "How terrible! I make a habit of forgetting everything I say immediately, and pray you'll soon make a similar effort."

"Not for the world," I replied solemnly, and peered at her. "They sustained me, you know."

"What? What sustained you?"

"Your words. Your letters."

"Did they? I'm rather shocked to hear it." She looked it, and then smiled with a trace of that familiar subdued sadness. "Sybil poured out full pages with her sympathy; even Edith could jot out a sentence or two which went beyond trifles. The truth is I rather lamented that I could never find anything to say that wasn't shallow gossip or rote particulars." She gave a small shake of her head, her good humor returning as she inclined slightly in my direction, a position of secret divulgence. "I'll have you know I'm incapable of anything substantial."

_You are capable of much_, I thought, but aloud said: "They were just what I needed. You have a talent for knowing exactly what it is needed."

"You'll have to put that in writing for me. I doubt I could find anyone else who shares your glowing opinions."

I smiled. God had formed me as a straightforward creature, war forging me into a bolder one still, and I could not resist the opening, nor prying into the topic that had heretofore been inaccessible. "Not even your cousin, Mr. Crawley? I remember before the war – he seemed rather an admirer of yours. At your sister's ball everything seemed quite…. settled." She remained silent. "I hear he is recently made Captain in the infantry, an aide-de-camp to a General Strutt."

"Yes," she at last replied. "We write occasionally. He's well, as far as we know. He was here shortly before you arrived, touring England – Manchester and Yorkshire –endeavoring to boost recruitment. He made a stop at Downton just as we were opening the hospital." She paused, her next words coming out constrained. "He's since returned to France."

"I have heard…."

"Yes?"

"Idle chatter; but I've heard Downton has secured itself a future mistress."

Her smile tightened. "Idle chatter, indeed. You must tell me your sources."

I laughed and the tension eased. "No covert meetings by candlelight, I assure you. I keep in touch with Miss Semphill, now that she is Mrs. Briggs." This time it was I who leaned in to impart in a low voice, "She is still the gossip she always was."

Her eyes shifted slyly. "I'll never alter my opinion that she played rather false with you, and yet you are still on friendly terms. Your forgiving nature puts the rest of us to shame."

"You give me too much credit. Although I am glad to be so, with her at least, and to hear that your family is likewise on similar terms with your cousin."

"I don't want you to have the wrong idea; there is nothing at all to reproach on _his_ end. But yes, you've heard correctly: he is engaged to another. A solicitor's daughter out of London; a Miss Lavinia Swire." I shook my head. The name was not familiar. "He brought her here last autumn. She's awfully nice," she said a touch too brightly. "Perhaps you'll meet her. And him." She chuckled at her fumbling and folded her hands into her lap. "Both of them."

"Perhaps."

Our confidences, I surmised when she steered the conversation to a more tepid subject, were not quite entrenched enough for full disclosure on the details of her abbreviated engagement. Airily she began to speak of her recent trips to London and her new acquaintances there, one name in particular resurfacing rather frequently.

"And shall you return to London again soon?" I asked.

"I shouldn't think so. As much as I love the city – and my Aunt Rosamund always makes for a refreshing change in company – I don't like to be away from Downton for long." She paused to look wistfully at her referenced home. "I will miss it, rather dearly, I believe, when the time comes," she said, a weary finality in her voice that was saturated with a note of longing.

"It is your home," I offered, and now I, too, was gazing at the magnificent structure. "Naturally you will miss it. And I've often found it is our nature to be reluctant for change, that we do not desire it."

She smiled tightly. "Perhaps not for you or for me. But the time comes when we all must move forward with our lives, wouldn't you say?"

_Only because we are denied the opportunity to go backwards._

I could not say it, no matter how strongly I felt its truth. I bowed my head, and studied her passive aspect, not a single muscle twitching under her pale, glistening skin. Our conversation and time for leisure had winded down, but she sat unmoving as carved stone on the edge of the bench, neither the sudden burst of wind nor her own volition propelling her onwards. Instead we continued together in silence, stagnating there in the hot air under the branches of the oak.

At length she rose and began wheeling me over the grass, passing under the scorching sunlight as we made our way back to the house. "I shall give you fair warning that tomorrow your presence is requested at dinner," she drawled.

"I really shouldn't –"

She shushed me forthwith. "Mother's spies have already informed her of your favorite dishes, Mrs. Hughes has already purchased the ingredients, and Mrs. Patmore has already planned the menu. You wouldn't want to insult half the household by refusing?"

She had shut me into my coffin, nailing it down with my well-known and eternal fear of offending.

"No." I smiled. "Certainly not."

* * *

My father had shipped an assortment of my old things to Downton from our London home, the place where I usually resided. When I lifted the lid I was broken down by a photograph of my mother resting gently atop the bundle, which I promptly tucked into my mattress and have not yet since dared another viewing. A few personal grooming items, my journal, a favorite novel or two, and a variety of clothes completed the package. I had never sent him a list of necessities; I had never sent him anything at all. But he must have intuitively guessed at my need for proper evening attire during my stay at Downton, for underneath my worn copy of _The Warden_ was my most recently purchased tux, pristine black and fitted for a man who weighed a good twenty pounds more than I did now.

The next evening I removed the coattails that I had neatly stowed into my trunk. The fabric swam over my thin form and Nurse Crawley assisted me in the final dress preparations, mysteriously brandishing a healthy number of pins and such as only a Lady can, the other men gawking on in jealousy. She was in her nurse's uniform, her actions calm and methodical, bearing no hint of haste. I surmised she had no similar need for an outfit change.

"I take it you shall not be joining us?" I asked.

"No, not tonight," she informed me casually. "I have a night shift at the village hospital."

"After a full days work here? Won't you be tired?"

She shrugged. "I don't mind it. It's very peaceful at night. I think it might be even more relaxing than a dinner with my family."

I smiled, bemused. "And do you always prefer working late hours to dining with your family?" I asked, though not unkindly.

Her lips moved up in a mignon smile, but she would say nothing more, only brushed down my shoulders, declared me ready for the fray, and left without farewell.

Lady Edith came moments later to fetch me. She was a fixture in the patient rooms, constantly on the prowl for someone to coddle. I had so far been successful in rebuffing her attempts to draw me into some kind of camaraderie. It wasn't that I disliked her or her company; but I was on guard for any kind of compassion induced by pity, and I could not forget that first pathetic look which she had bestowed upon me on my arrival at Downton, as well as a few other choice memories associated with her name. There lingered on in my mind the past misdeeds of Lady Edith Crawley, tarnishing any of her recent good intentions. Neither party ever mentioned the rank betrayal, though there was no doubt of either having forgotten that I was privy to how deep the sisters' enmity once ran. Perhaps I was unfair to so unequivocally discharge some of their transgressions while holding others forever accountable, but I was not a perfect person, and of late I had begun to question whether I was even a good one.

Her face bobbed into a view with a brilliant smile and she was dressed in a striking gown of red. Age, it seemed, had made her more confident, which had naturally overflowed to her style and posture. Something of a late bloomer, I suspected, and my smile was approaching sincere as she greeted me.

"Mr. Napier," she said as she advanced. "Sybil told me you're ready."

"Yes. We finished up a few minutes ago."

"Well I hope you're prepared. We don't have many dinner guests these days and we're all quite tired of each other's company." I could not see her face as she pushed me from behind but I pictured the shy, quirky smile that sometimes escaped onto her lips. "Your likely to be the main course of the evening; everyone trying their best to get a bite."

She wheeled me out of the living quarters, down several corridors, and into a green-papered drawing room, every eye examining me as I felt like a right fool.

"We're here!" Lady Edith extraneously exclaimed. A few shifting glances told me that her awkwardness was not considered endearing by most of the family.

"Mr. Napier," Lady Grantham greeted, her warm smile lighting up the already bright room. "How delightful of you to join us for dinner."

"Thank you, Lady Grantham. How good of you it was to invite me."

"It's our pleasure." She turned to Lord Grantham strutting about rather pretentiously in his uniform. "Shall we go in?"

Lady Mary gave my arm a small pat as she passed her sister wheeling me up to the table. I was seated next to the hostess, and acknowledged the honor with a gracious nod. It was a small family dinner (Lady Mary had previously disclosed her mother's wish not to overwhelm me), and on normal occasions I would rejoice at the laxity that such intimacy permits, where talk is not limited to those stationed at either elbow, but allowed to follow its natural course. This night, however, I would have preferred the nuisance of exclusivity, the sole chatter of Lady Grantham to my right and Lady Mary to my left, for Lord Grantham saw fit to dominate the conversation, perversely choosing me and my time abroad as the primary topic.

The last spoonful of soup was nearly to my lips when his attacks began.

"How was your journey back to England?" Lord Grantham asked. The spoon froze. My appetite vanished. And I returned the utensil to the bowl, letting it fall a few inches onto the china with a hollow clatter.

"Tolerable. Uneventful." I smiled tersely. "I am not a good sailor even at the best of times, so naturally…."

He cleared his throat. "Yes, naturally."

The soup was cleared and the fish served as he plied me for details on my soldierly exploits. I made pains to show this topic was not to my liking, but he remained oblivious.

"And were you never in the trenches?" he asked to the Ladies' visible distress.

I frowned at the yellow sauce on the fish, thick and bubbling, it's color obnoxiously bright. Vivid images transcended: yellow clouds perfuming the fields; men with faces of melted skin.

"Occasionally," I answered. "Mostly the mounted regiments were used to transport supplies –"

"But sometimes to mount a charge?"

I grimaced. "Yes. Sometimes for that. The tactic is largely abandoned, but there are times where they see the need, and call the order."

Lord Grantham nodded. His voice, to my gratitude, monopolized the rest of the fish course. He spoke of his unit, the North Riding Volunteers, of which he was Colonel, and then extensively of his own experience in mounted charges during the Boer war. Similarities were drawn for my approval, and I parried with rote nods, infrequently dotted with "of course" or "exactly so" or other affirmatives that I can hardly now recount.

My plate and its unspoiled portion of fish were removed. Lord Grantham's campaign became distracted with the meat carving while Lady Mary at last came to my rescue.

"Please, Papa, I'm sure Mr. Napier has had enough of your military talk. We must now regale him with all of our much less impressive endeavors."

The charge had relented, and conversation once again blossomed. By her exuberant tone Lady Grantham, I could see, was becoming highly invested in managing the hospital. At times she attempted to temper her apparent passion with reminders to all that the whole affair was indeed a very wretched burden; but her eyes sparkled with every menu change she detailed, her voice firm in its pride of success.

Lady Edith spoke at length of her interest in driving.

"Do you drive, Mr. Napier?" she asked quite innocently, and then flushed "That is…what I meant was –"

I raised a calming hand. "It's all right, Lady Edith. No, I never learned to drive. And I suppose now I never shall," I finished succinctly. The subsequent silence was so staggering I could hear myself swallowing several gulps of wine.

The bustle of eating continued, ebbing the awkwardness, as Lady Grantham segued into more benign territory. "How is your father doing? Is he still at your country home or is he in London for the summer?"

"He's in Oxfordshire. He hasn't come to London for a season since my mother's passing."

Another round of stagnating silence. I was indeed shaping up to be "that" dinner guest, but could not be mortified. It did not take special foresight to predict that this dinner would prove to be a disappointment.

True to Lady Mary's word, dessert was indeed my favorite. A chocolate pudding, and in the past very much to my liking, the evening's tension had waylaid the last of my appetite, and I took only two bites before I could stomach no more.

"One of Sybil's favorites," Lord Grantham said. "It's a shame she could not join us, even when we had guests."

"Your daughter's services are much appreciated by all the patients, I can assure you, Lord Grantham."

Lady Grantham beamed. "Of course we're all so proud of her. I had my reservations at first, but she's taken to the work so well, and we hear nothing but her praises from Dr. Clarkson and the other nurses."

"And all of us as well," I said.

And thus we ended the skirmish on a high note, and as a bonus victory it was automatically assumed I would join the Ladies straightaway after dinner, Lord Grantham not being the type to wheel a convalescent into the parlor after cigars and port. He stayed behind to indulge himself as Lady Edith again did the honors in transporting me. I was wheeled next to the sofa, Lady Mary settling gracefully on the end beside me.

We resumed our normal routine, and spoke for some time once more upon London. She was in the midst of opining her low opinion of the décor at Claridges when her father at last entered and she drew away to speak to him. Lady Grantham immediately seized the opportunity, and took her daughter's previous post at my side.

The Countess' smile was something to behold, warm and relaxing as a fond caress. "I'd heard rumors that Mary's been monopolizing you," she said slyly, "and now I have actual, visual evidence."

"She has been very good to me. I don't deserve it, not with all she could be doing with her time. And rest assured that I never tire of her company."

"You two look so well together; I've always thought so. Seeing you two together - of course I can't help but remember when you were here last."

"A rather ghastly visit, wasn't it?" I laughed. I could not resist the ironic humor of her wistful smile, so at odds as it was with my own morbid assessment of that last, deadly visit.

Her smile slackened. She began to look at me with new shades in her eyes, as if cold water were being tricked down her spine, and I wondered how much (or little) the Countess really knew of that night. "In some ways, yes," she said guardedly. "But every storm cloud has its silver lining." Her penetrating look made no claims to subterfuge as she bluntly asked, "Mary's been rather frank with you, I suppose? About her visits to London?"

"You mean about Sir Richard Carlisle? Yes, she's mentioned him. I've never met him before but of course I know who he is."

"Then you must know how things stand with her…." She tapered off. I could not understand the direction of her verbal nudging, nor discern if she was sending me a message or plying me for information. I chose the former option, feeling it the safest way not to betray any of Lady Mary's confidences.

"Lady Grantham. You should know…I have no intention of renewing my pursuit of Lady Mary."

She appeared rather surprised, and I assumed I must have guessed wrongly her intentions. "Forgive me, Mr. Napier, I wasn't trying to –" Her mouth stopped short of any confession. "Well. I'll stop now before I get myself into more trouble, except to say that, as I'm sure you already know, every mother has her favorites."

Again her smile almost seemed to be winking at me, but instead of uplifting my ego it only exacerbated my feelings of inferiority. My hand, as ever, found its way to my right thigh, thumbing it gently.

"Even now?"

"My dear Mr. Napier. Yes. Even now."

Lady Grantham rose to conclude the evening just as the clock on the mantle began to chime – twelve strokes – and I was ferried back to my bed.

The attending nurse helped me ready for bed. I lay there, tired, but could not move my body towards a sense of rest enough for slumber. I played with the images of that evening, rolling them out like one of those picture films I had not yet had the fortune to see but had heard so much about. The title card flashed and there was Lord Grantham, parading around in a postured grandeur, reliving the glory days of yore. Young Lady Sybil at the opposite end of the reel, antsy and restless, fidgeting her way out of the bonds that both elevated her and held her captive.

And somewhere in the middle of my imagined film sat Lady Mary – always it seemed to come back to Lady Mary – relaxed and serene as the moon at which I know gazed. It hung limply in the sky, and after several minutes of observation I could not discern the slightest change in its position. It seemed a stationary ornament, though I knew that in the course of a single day its voyage was unparalleled to any I could imagine.

The moon was at its apex as I at last drifted into sleep, unmarred by any cloud, nor any silver lining.

* * *

_Thanks for reading :)_


	3. Midnight

_This was orginally going to be a three chaptered arc but it kind of got away from me, so I've finagled a bit to make it into four. Special thanks to the lovely Mrstater for the beta._

* * *

**Midnight**

Tentative steps brought her closer and closer. Her tread was light and nearly soundless, and though my thoughts remained absorbed in the events of the past hour I could yet sense her circling, hawk-like, ready to dive into any opening.

_Don't worry yourself, Mr. Napier. It's always a fair trial at first. But you must trust that you'll get your strength back, eventually. Come now, you're not the first man who's ever lost a leg!_

She could not have come at a worse moment.

"Mr. Napier," she said, her tone uncertain, as if asking a question.

I did not reply straightaway, nor look away from the window out which I was gazing. Outside men and their white-hooded caretakers were plodding through the scheduled morning exercises. I ignored these in favor of the distant horizon, gently sloping hillocks still basking in the remnants of the moist night air. It would not be long before noonday's rays would reach them, coiling the grass as it was sapped of its vivacity.

I heard a chair being drawn surreptitiously to my bedside. She sat down without insistence, without permission.

"Mr. Napier," she repeated – firmer this time, but still with that whiff of meekness that seemed her ever-present aroma.

"Lady Edith," I mumbled, and turned towards her, watched the corners of her mouth lift cautiously. But the pale cream of her skin and that strawberry mop of hair disintegrated before my eyes, crumbling away until all I could see was the image of Nurse Waverly's wrinkled and beaming profile, that smile infuriating as it was indefatigable, even as I struggled and struggled and struggled again, a dawning comprehension cresting in my mind that my undoing may very well not be in the mortification of simply learning to walk again, but in being unable to accomplish the feat at all.

My abrupt scowl must have frightened her courage, for she stalled for a time, insecure eyes seeking recourse in her fumbling hands. Finally she looked up again, and gestured towards the window. "Shouldn't you be out there with the rest of them? I had thought you were allotted the nine o'clock hour for exercise."

"I was out there earlier. I made little progress, and so requested to come back in early."

Her mouth made tiny movements, working out the proper encouragement. "Not to worry," she sputtered. "I'm sure all you'll need is –"

"Time. Yes, I know. I've been told often enough." I sighed. "Do you require something, Lady Edith?" My brusqueness had left her looking rather abashed. My inner conscience begged to be relieved by apology, but I would not submit.

"No! That is, not really, but I –" She paused, her eyes searching out the room. "Have you got to know any of the other patients at all?"

I looked absently at the set of familiar but completely unknown faces.

"No. I have not, of late, been much in the mood for socializing." I sighed again. "Is Lady Mary in? Could I trouble you to find her?"

"Mary? I believe she's gone out for a ride."

"And I take it you did not care to join her?" I asked curtly. She winced. She could not subdue her expressions the way a lady of her station ought, not anymore than I could draw upon my own gentleman's prerogative to moderate my tongue into more amicable conversation. Another man with my same face and body, tall and limber and bursting with rote pleasantries, would have cringed at such rudeness; but remorse far from me, sunk down into the earth along with my rotting flesh.

"No," she said after composing herself. "Mary was always the rider. I didn't have the seat that she did and I eventually gave it up entirely. Although…I wouldn't mind trying out the saddle again."

I smiled sardonically. "Good for you."

"Are you still a great reader?" she tried again. "Mary tells me that in your correspondence you would write frequently about books."

"I haven't read a book since I left for France, no"

"Well, you're quite in luck! Papa's library is rather marvelous, and it's not all histories and biographies. We've a number of novels, if you're at all interested." She smiled brightly. "Mary tells me you're quite fond of novels, and you shall correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Trollop a personal favorite?"

"Your sister, it seems, has told you much about me." My eyes narrowed. "Are there any other…._ particulars_ of our friendship that she has shared with you?" Her expression shifted. From careful eagerness stemmed an array of correlating features, the summation of which amounted to shame. I decided right then to end the farce. "I thank you for the effort, Lady Edith, but right now all I wish for is solitude."

She nodded as she rose, her features numbing, and departed.

* * *

A full week passed and I was not one step closer. Nurse Waverly was steadfast in her optimism, hounding me to the outer reaches of my patience with good cheer and encouragement. After one especially grand failure, a full-on collapse brought on when one of my sticks happened upon a small and well-hidden hole on the lawn, I requested to be wheeled a ways out into the park rather than returned to the confines of the house. Nurse Waverly complied readily. My mood was foul and my words even more so. Sourness rolled off my tongue like morning dew till even her unbreakable smile seemed to crack at the seams.

Apart from the house and its bustling circumference, I was able to lick my wounds in privacy and silence, the smudges of grass stains besmirching my trouser legs taunting me into a deep brooding as I sat under the climbing sun. My thoughts began to wander through the dark fogs of memory, an increasingly familiar terrain, haunted by dying bodies and disembodied anguish, yet occasionally touching down briefly on sunnier times: Age seven – my first riding lesson. Our Groom Jones applauded my seat, assured my dewy-eyed mother that I was a natural rider. Twelve, and I had just completed my first voyage overseas, Father a pillar by my side, steadying my wobbling knees as he directed me off the gangplank. Nineteen years old, in the throes of my first season as one of the premiere bachelors on the market, I attended ball after ball, reveling in the gaiety as I danced through the night.

How fleeting, I thought then, were those simple pleasures of yesteryear, like a porcelain figurine unaware of the hammer-strike imminent. And though unremarkable at the time they now bore the full weight of what I had lost and what I would never have again. A lifetime's worth of agonies now separated me from that once happy and ignorant creature, and although still young, still eligible, now – now I had become acquainted with the ugliness of human nature, was habitually awakened by nightmares that disabled me as much as my purloined leg.

My mood slipped. Full daylight roiled me with its heat and brightness and appearance of promise. These melancholy ponderings had become like a cavern, large, dark, and vast, a home in which I could have easily spent hours, for of late they had ruled as a despot in my mind, their power over me often severe.

Little could I have foretold, then, the light that would soon come poking through: I sat there for some uncounted minutes, when by the by I was marginally distracted by a figure approaching in my periphery, clad in a day dress, sunlight seeming to jump off the bright blue fabric. I felt slightly gratified, if not mollified, by the attention, but I did not heed her hastened approach, and once she arrived by my side only acknowledged her presence with a slight nod.

She spoke.

"Mr. Napier? Evelyn? What are you –?"

I waved her away. "Please, Lady Mary. I do not desire company."

I was annoyed to see her ignore my implied request, choosing rather to step closer to me, her features concerned. "You'll forgive the intrusion. Now tell me: What's got into you?" she asked. "Sybil tells me you've quite upset some of the nurses."

I frowned. "Well they've quite upset me," I said obstinately. Her eyes narrowed, and she gave me such a look as would put any proper nursemaid to shame. I could almost hear the reproachful tones of my mother transcending time to accompany the scold in Lady Mary's eyes:

_Now, now, my Evelyn. Childishness does not become you_.

I matched her gaze, and she sighed.

"Come," she relented. "There's no use baking out here all morning. Let's get in under the shade where we can speak without being roasted alive." I was helpless to resist when she took hold of the handles of my chair and conveyed me to that eponymous bench, "Lady Mary's bench," which sat nestled under the shelter of the old, giant cedar. She sat down, a mild warmth pervading the air that was quickly escalating to the searing heat this region was known for, and removed her gloves.

Moisture trickled off our brows. Her face shone in the filtered sunglight, eyes somewhat strained. Late summer had given way to partial breezes, and one swooped over us now, for a moment capsizing the heat and rattling the leaves overhead with the sound of impending autumn, harmonizing with her dulcet voice as she said without preamble:

"Evelyn, is there anything you wish to speak of?"

Everything and nothing. "No." And I turned away.

"Has your stay here been comfortable?"

"Quite."

"How splendid. And what of your recovery?"

"My wounds have healed, as you see."

"That I can. And your rehabilitation? I see you now again in the lawn; your time out there – has it done you well?"

"As well as always."

The parley of the well-bred: Lady Mary had always been a formidable opponent. A skilled bluff, her tells were nearly imperceptible, masked as they were by that marmoreal beauty, and I had believed her beaten by my evasive answers, readied myself to bear her departure, when to my surprise she pulled out a trump.

"And your family? Have you seen your father since you returned?" she asked quietly.

She had known exactly which lever to pull. In a breath the steel trap was set off:

"My father has not left home since my mother died," I said with controlled anger. "He would not leave it now, not even for me." The rolling lawns looked as covered graves as my eyes roved vacantly over them, and my voice wept. "Especially not for me."

"Then you must go to him." She spoke firmly. "Doctor Clarkson says you're quite capable of resuming your treatment elsewhere. You could hire out a nurse and finish your convalescence with family."

"I feel my recovery would best be spent here."

"The Downton Hospital is hardly remarkable in its practices, and I think it would do you good to be among friends again."

I turned to her, sharply. "Am I not among friends here?"

"Of course you are, as you well know," she gently chided. "And that is not the point, as you also well know."

My face turned away. "I cannot return home."

"Then shall you stay here and continue to terrorize the staff?" she said bluntly. My brows drew together and my mouth opened, but she headed me off. "Of course I know all about it, the way you prowl around the ward all but biting the nurses' heads off. You may be on your best behavior when I visit, as you no doubt should, but I, too, have my spies, and Edith tells me you've been in rather a mood lately."

"Lately?" I laughed. "I'm afraid her powers of perception have not availed her here; my mood has not changed since I first sailed for France."

"Perhaps it may seem so to you now. But I can remember, and perhaps with more accuracy, how it really was. And if I cannot, I still have in my possession those early letters, proofs in pen and paper that would speak otherwise to your claim."

I scoffed. "What can a letter say?"

"Much, I think," her voice beginning to quaver. "You spared me much of the horrors but could not hide everything. I saw it all there, whether you intended it or not – the way your perseverance suffered, the melancholy that left me awake at night. But even that, even in all of that – I could still see that you remained much as you were, that you were still –" she paused, seeming to consider. "You," she finished succinctly, and so utterly lacking in any of her natural asperity that my attention was drawn. I looked back over to see that she was staring intently ahead. "And now…. right now you are not yourself," she finished quietly.

"And what _am_ I, now, Lady Mary?" I snapped. She shook her head, eyes closing. "Look at me!" She swallowed hard. "Look at me, Mary!" I demanded again, and she at last complied with reluctance, dark, liquid eyes opening, forcing themselves to train on the outrage and sorrow that were swelling my own. "Now, tell me what you see!"

She breathed evenly for several moments, perfectly upright, and without a twitch said, "I see my friend." It was spoken softly and with a comforting cool, as a cold hand on a feverish brow, and I began to steady. "The man who never once let me sit out a waltz, who humored me enough to read Bronte; who warned me off of Henry Jenkins before it was too late. The one who always cared for me, who looked out for me, even when I was foolish enough –" She stopped abruptly. Her voice had grown thick, and she diluted it with several quiet breaths. "I see the man I have always seen, Evelyn." Her brows knit closer. "What is it you see?"

Dazedly I shook my head. "I used to know. I thought I knew exactly what I was and where I was going." _The Honorable Evelyn Napier, Heir to Viscount Brankson, Emissary to Turkey_. A wry chuckle escaped as I realized how easily definable I was by honorifics alone. "And then, against all better judgment and advice, I became Major Napier of the Second Calvary." I laughed again. Another title. "My path was marked out for me long before I was born. I've strayed from it, and this," I gestured downwards, "has been the price. I look at myself now and I wonder…what life can I have, like this? How many more years must I endure this body? Twenty? Thirty? Fifty, perhaps? Fifty more years of indolence, and the pity that has become my shame?"

"There is no pity here, and do not mistake our sympathy for disdain. Fifty more years, and you should feel lucky to have survived to see them. You speak of enduring when you ought to speak of _living_, Evelyn. Your life –"

"My_ life_," I enunciated, "is over. Over before it is even halfway finished."

"Not over! Only…" she struggled to end her sentence, and I could see her distaste as she compromised with, "different."

"Different? I am not a child, Mary, and I will not suffer your condescension: it is worse."

"Worse then, if you would have it, but still not over." She drew silent for a measure. "I haven't spoken of it..." she trailed off. She saw the question in my eyes, and there grew a firmness about her mouth, as if deciding something. "There was a time, years ago, when I believed I had lost everything."

"Mr. Crawley?" I asked, though in my tone there was no question.

She nodded. "Yes. Mr. Crawley." She sighed. "Of course now with the war and the hospital and everything that's passed, I feel silly for having once thought that…but at the time, I truly felt my future was over, that I'd forsaken any happiness. But over time I recovered, I found a way to move on. My life won't be what I once thought it, but it will continue, and I don't think I shall be unhappy. The question, Evelyn, is not what your life shall be, but what shall you _choose_ your life to be."

The command in her sharp voice as she said the last, softened by that vulnerability that sometimes marked her eyes, reminded me so forcefully in that moment of the contradiction that was my mother that I found myself unwillingly close to tears.

"I don't know." I looked to her imploringly. "I don't know, Mary! I had plans. I wanted –" I stopped. "I need not explain to you; you know all that it was that I wanted. But it all seems dashed now, not even worth the effort. Why learn to walk again? Why learn to live life again, when this –" I again gestured to my missing limb "– is what I have to content with for the rest of it?"

"Your injury is not the end, Evelyn. At the hospital, I've seen so many men who –"

I cut her off with a frustrated growl. "It's not only that, can't you see!" I pleaded, my voice raw and fractured, cracking as it rose in pitch. "I've seen death, Mary! I've seen it in ways no man ever should. I've faced it, even when…"

"Yes?" she urged, taking my hand, and the levees burst.

"We were sent to the slaughter, Mary!" I yelled. "With parades and cheering – they congratulated us along the way! And what was it all for? For honor? For glory? To prove our superiority by sacrificing our lives? To avenge a man I've never even met? To gain a stretch of land smaller than what I own? We were cut down, day after day after day, by bombs and bullets and that stinking filth; and even more: I killed, Mary. I ended other men's lives, faces – I don't remember them all but I can still hear their voices, hear them screaming as their life ended by _my_ hand – all of this, and yet I still don't know _why_!"

Her cheeks bled of color, along with her hands, turned stark white from the deathly grip of my fingers about her wrist, both of us trembling as I delivered my final, anguished plea:

"Tell me why!"

She held back a sob. "I cannot answer."

"Why?"

"Do not ask me."

"Tell me, Mary!"

"I dare not! To say it aloud – it would be cruel, would do nothing at all to help! You were there when our country needed you – all of you were – and that's all you need to comfort, and all that I shall say to you."

My fingers traced over her smooth palm and I brought the hand, the hand that I had led to dances and dinners, fingertips filed to perfection and smelling of lavender creams, up to my face as I openly wept.

"I won't insult you with pretense," she said softly. "I know nothing of what you have faced, nor what you face now. But I do know _you_," she brought her hand down and used her other to lift my face, "and I know what kind of person you are. You're a good man, Evelyn, and a strong one. One of the strongest I know. Think me foolish, but I believe you shall overcome this."

Our faces were close. So close was she to me at that moment. Not since her coming out had we shared such a small space between us, and I recalled how she looked all those years ago, laughing with freedom, and for me, at her most beautiful, with the hard exterior removed and her smile spreading. She was not smiling now. Rather, she was very close to tears.

The words dwindled to nothing, displaced by a multitude of silent thoughts. They existed as a raging tempest: my burdens, my sorrows, the future that I refused to contemplate. And still uncanvassed was the one I most dreaded to face: my inevitable return home – an inescapable reminder of my past, that fortress stalked by a man broken with double portions of sorrow – one for his lost wife, another for his disappearing son. At some point it became clear that I could not face him. Not when he had his own wounds to nurse and I was far from recovered of my own. After my mother's death, before my departure for the front, I had held his hand through life, kicking away cobblestones and mending breaches in the road. I could not continue on as his forbearing caretaker, for I was no longer of use to him.

I was no longer of use to anyone.


	4. Dawn

_Last chapter. This has been quite a challenge for me, using a POV that I have never used before, as well as tackling the darker themes. Huge thanks to Mrstater for betaing for me, as well as to those who have read and reviewed. Thanks for bearing with me :)  
_

* * *

**Dawn**

On the varied terrains of the continent I sometimes heard them, the low-pitched rumble of the fighter planes that roared overhead. I used to watch them loop through the clouds, at first impressed with this symbol of man's innovative spirit. But it did not take long to learn that they were quite flimsy devices, the smallest casualty forcing them into a tailspin and a direct collision course with the ground. I had witnessed such a spectacle enough to know that a spiral had only one direction: downwards, downwards, downwards they would go, plumes of grey billowing like a kite's tail from behind, the weighty velocity forcing air out of lungs, withholding even the pleasure of a final scream before impact.

I could not register my descent as I plummeted, but felt the full effects when I at last landed, broken at the bottom, with no hope, my spirit irreparably weakened. I had never before known such melancholy, the weeks that passed in a blink, the days and nights that merged together. My weariness ran inversely to my appetite: I slept much. I ate little. I spoke even less. But for the strictest orders I could not find the will to rouse myself each dawn, and then only to spend my time in a reposing vigil by the window, in stationary silence watching the world spin on without me, disturbed only by another patient who might eventually hassle me out of doors, or the occasional and well-meaning nurse who saw fit to push their way in, a flurry of solicitousness, yet always to their failure, and often to their regret.

Yet even hopeless as I was, a small part of me knew it could not last forever. In that eternal night I could sometimes sense the scant light that marked my escape path: Lady Mary had paved the way, and now it was up to me to claw my way back up, one excruciating day at a time, and the painful process started nearly as it began, with an eager, pale face crowned in sunset curls bounding into view.

She was a regular English bulldog, I had to admit, as her spry steps sent her smilingly over to my bed, face aglow with an air of triumph as she flourished in my direction a pamphlet clutched in her hand.

She had caught me just as I awakened from another nap, and allowed me a few moments to rub the grogginess from my eyes.

"Mr. Napier! Good afternoon." She moved to my side without further preamble. "You once told me of your interest in renewing your riding?" There was no question but her statement ended on an incline, making it such. I had found Lady Edith spoke everything as a question, even when none were required.

I attempted a smile.

"I meant only in the hypothetical. Of course it is not possible now."

She took my words as invitation, and welcomed herself onto my bed, eyes sparkling with a kind of guarded enthusiasm.

"Well, I thought so as well, at first," she replied. "But I've been looking into it, and there are those who continue to ride even after amputation." Her mouth curled slightly at the word, as if swallowing an unsavory bite. "I've requested some material from Queen Mary's Hospital, and they sent me a few things –fascinating, really – that explain how it_ is_ possible, with the proper instruction and oversight."

Her hand extended in my direction and I accepted the leaflet without word. I scrutinized the drawn images depicting men riding – some with one leg, some with none, all with those oversize artificial limbs hanging off of them. Pictorially it appeared feasible, albeit awkward and uncomfortable, and the accompanying words tucked neatly under the images implied that many like me had not seen the last of their riding days.

And yet I dared not hope.

I shook my head. "Thank you Lady Edith. I do appreciate your efforts, but this…." My head gave another firm shake for good measure. "I simply cannot see that it is possible."

She spoke nimbly around her disappointment, and with a persistent gleam in her eye that foretold of a future visit, she rose, and took her leave.

That little gleam stayed with me for the rest of the day, and prepared me for her reappearance on the morrow. She restated her case, and I summarily dismissed it. Again she rose, and left, and I considered the matter as sufficiently dropped.

I was rather shocked when, the following afternoon, she again visited my bedside.

My annoyance was readily conveyed when she came once again on the day after.

And the day after.

And the day after.

Surliness could not dissuade her; outright hostility seemed only to multiply her tenacity. She was never pushy; that quality had completely surpassed her by. But she would not relent, and I could not understand what it was that drove this middle Crawley daughter. But what I could see was that she was a seasoned veteran of rejection, one whose defeat could always be trumped by sheer determination.

One afternoon, and with unusually uplifted spirits which I refused to lay down to a certain persistent middle child, I chewed on a bite of sandwich in the soldier's dining hall as I was accosted yet again. She regaled me once more of the details, that same cursed pamphlet waving in front of my face. The routine had become so well established that I felt free to joke upon it.

"You're not used to accepting "no" as an answer, are you?" I said crisply.

She smiled as I bit off another mouthful. "I'm afraid not, but are any of us?"

I had to laugh. The times when I had not absolutely had my way were indeed few and far between and I decided then that I should not be so stingy with my acquiescing to others.

"Very well then, Lady Edith," I said after swallowing. Since you refuse to leave me in peace." I opened my palm in her direction. "Let me take another look."

* * *

"Well, we're off. Do wish us luck, Edith."

Lady Mary sat regally upon her mount – Diamond, if memory served – dressed smartly in a black habit and shod in a pair of gleaming, black leather boots. Lady Edith stood on the ground to give us a proper send off, and cheered me on with a brilliant smile.

They had spared one of the mares for my use – a gentle creature, I was assured. The stirrup for my right foot had been fitted with one slightly larger than what was considered average, large enough even for the artificial foot that sat awkwardly within. The Crawleys' groom, Lynch, had made the necessary provisions well in advance, and would accompany us on our short venture – along with several nurses and able bodied men who would be standing at the ready to catch my falling body, should the need arise.

I had little doubt that such drastic measures would absolutely be required, and sent a resigned and very audible sigh into the cool morning air.

"I hope you're not having second thoughts," Lady Mary said with a sly smile.

"Perhaps earlier this morning." I glanced around, becoming aware, as if for the first time, that I was out of doors, perched on a horse, with an entire entourage in my wake. "But I'm afraid I've gone well beyond any chance of backing out."

"Quite right. There's only one way left for you now."

I looked forward, and squeezed the reins. "Is this madness?" I sincerely asked.

"I don't think so," Mary replied. "You've heard it all from Edith, Lynch agrees, and everything's been arranged exactly per the instructions from Queen Mary's." She smiled and cocked her head. "And even if it is, you'll simply have to indulge in a little morning's insanity." She kicked her heels into Diamond's side. "I haven't ridden all month and I won't be detained a second longer!" she cried before trotting off, and turned her head towards her groom and the assembled crowd. "Shall we move forward?" she called, her voice clear and radiant.

We all murmured our agreement. Lynch started off, leading the way, a very slow walking pace, and as my mount took her first steps the muscles still left to me reacted instantly. I felt that familiar, porpoising rhythm, a familiarity I had previously dreaded, though it now gave me comfort. As peculiar and off-balanced as I felt, the muscles in my legs began to move, to balance and shape themselves into the support the rest of my body needed.

After a few jostling steps Lady Mary swept her gaze over to me and shouted:

"Mr. Napier! How are you managing?"

"I'm not sure I –" My form wobbled and a surfeit of hands reached up to steady me. I chuckled. I would sooner die of an aneurysm than a fall off of this horse. "I think I shall manage just fine, thank you!" I shouted back.

The walk continued. Sweat drained off my brow and down my face in rivulets. The exertion after so many weeks of inactivity exhausted me, though the small distance we he had established as a primary goal would have been considered trifling in years past. In all, I was able to control the creature with hands that instinctually took command of the reins, and legs which still retained more stamina and purpose than I had surmised. Muscles nearly forgotten from misuse were rudely reawakened, and I knew that I would suffer the consequences of it shortly thereafter. I almost laughed then, remembering how often I would complain of the soreness that was the bane of every rider. I had a feeling now, an ironic stirring in my gut, that the ache in my muscles would be something of a salve for my wounded mind, and that I would almost relish the pain.

When we returned to the stables, everyone fresh and barely exercised, save for myself whose face and neck were soaked, and whose breath came in ragged spurts, Lady Edith was still there, waiting avidly with that same, unshakeable smile.

My smile of late had not been so steadfast, but made a ready appearance now.

"How was it? Were you successful?" Lady Edith asked, nearly breathless with the anticipation.

I was helped down and relaxed into my chair, removing my hat and mopping my face with the towel she proffered before answering. "You saw me leave on my mount and return just the same. I shall count that as success."

Her mouth quirked. "And there were no...problems?"

"There were a few close calls, but I was very well safeguarded, as you can see." I gestured to the men disassembling around me, thanking them with my smile.

"So you were able to do it!" Lady Edith could not restrain her clapping, nor her slight jump. "I knew it!" she cried joyfully. "How wonderful for you!"

While riding my concentration was so fixed on staying upright I did not fully comprehend the magnitude of my undertaking, or what it meant for my future. But now, next to a Lady whose excitement was contagious, giddiness began to overtake me.

"Yes, yes," I said in a rush, and laughed. "It went better than I could have expected." My breathing began to ease, and I rubbed my legs. " And it felt good to be moving of my own accord again." I smiled with a certain energy. "Now if I can only remake the passageways in my house to accommodate a mounted rider, I might have a chance at a normal life."'

Lady Edith laughed as Lady Mary, now dismounted, made her way over. "Marvelously done, Mr. Napier!"

"Somewhat overstated, I think."

"No, Mary's right. It was quite an achievement, what you've done here this morning. I think you should be proud of yourself!"

I shook my head, bemused. "I wouldn't go that far. A twenty minute ride over a hundred yards? A happy accomplishment, I'll grant you, but not quite the makings of a champion at the Derby."

"But that would all depend where they culled the riders. A mere hundred yards, and yet still far more than what some of us here can claim."

Lady Edith cleared her throat. "She means me, of course," she said, and unnecessarily so, as Lady Mary's dancing eyes attested. But Lady Edith's eyes were also smiling, unruffled by the gentle mockery as she could see it was made for my ego's benefit, and she seemed the sort who was used to having her pride sacrificed for the pride of another.

"I've had Carson arrange some refreshments for us in the drawing room," Lady Mary addressed me. "You shall join us, of course."

I bowed. She began to wheel me back to the house as the sisters discussed the particulars of the luncheon. I sensed there would always be that undercurrent of animosity between them, but war changed people, and clearly they had been no exception. They had settled into a truce, albeit one that did not preclude sisterly ribbing, and insofar as my recovery concerned them, I could see they would be staunch allies. It was the image of those two, standing side by side, united under a common cause, that made me consider for the first time that something positive could have been rendered by this atrocious war. The thought gave me a small dose of disquietude.

We entered the house where Lady Mary was greeted by the butler, and I took the opportunity to lean over and whisper to Lady Edith: "You should not let Lady Mary have the run of you."

"There's no "letting" Mary do anything. She does and says whatever she pleases with impunity, and certainly without anyone's permission, least of all mine," she said.

"Then you shouldn't allow her the _opportunity_," I replied, and smiled. "Next time, we ride together."

* * *

That evening, while poking my way through a half-eaten supper, I sat by the window and studied the sun as it inched its way down to the horizon. I used to curse its descent and the night that awaited me, and even more the passing of another empty day. But this evening I watched with fresh eyes and was unperturbed by what I saw, for the first time in a long while pondering what was left of my future.

My arms had become somewhat enfeebled from the weeks spent in slumber and disuse, and so I asked permission to wheel myself along the park, which was granted quickly and with enthusiasm.

I spent nearly an hour huffing and sweating my way down the unpaved paths, allowing myself a short reprieve a good distance out into the park where a pretty shrubbery was beginning to shed its flowers. It was quiet there, barely lit by the steady glow of the house, and after a few minutes I saw in the ethereal light a familiar face walking briskly a few yards away.

"Lady Sybil!" I hailed. She stopped, searching in the dim light until she found me, and began walking in my direction, eyes peering until she recognized me in the gloom.

"Mr. Napier!" she called, and once reaching me continued with, "What brings you so far out here, and at this time of night?"

"Restlessness, I suppose. I felt like moving, and here I am."

She smiled and straightened her cap. "I heard about your ride this morning. I wish I could have been there, but I had an early shift at the hospital."

"Ah, I see." I looked pointedly at the darkening sky. "And just now you have been...?"

"Nowhere, really. I've finished my shift at the hospital and was just walking back."

"Oh?"

She laughed. "I had a late shift as well."

Early shift, late shift. Disregarding her obligations to her familial customs that Lord Grantham did not allow her to relinquish, it was no wonder I hardly ever saw the girl. "I was also on my way back just now," I told her. It was untrue, but it was rare when I desired company and I had decided to indulge the feeling rather than deny it.

"Shall I join you?" she asked.

I smiled and nodded. Wordlessly she moved to the back of my chair and began pushing, and I was surprised at how natural the action had become, and how little I now resented it. There were the idle comments about the weather or our daily lives, but the intervening silence was companionable. She had a calming presence. Her face spoke of friendliness, despite how her actual spoken exchanges were often laced with reticence.

"Marvelous structure," I said while Downton remained in a panoramic view before us. "I've always thought so."

"It is my home, and so I must think it beautiful. But at times it makes me sad." She fell silent.

"And I suppose I am obligated to ask, 'why'?" I could not keep the amusement out of my voice.

She gave a small and obligatory laugh, which sounded more like a sigh on the wind. "I don't wish to appear ungrateful. I know with what privilege I was born into." She was again quiet. "But when I look at Downton I see a future working so desperately to stay exactly the way it has always been, no matter how many years or people or wars go by. It never changes, and that makes me sad."

"But isn't that what we all strive for? To preserve what is good and beautiful? To keep our traditions, our way of life intact?" I began to grow agitated. "Isn't that the reason, if we are pressed to find one, why we are fighting this war in the first place?"

I tilted my head up to her. Her face was hidden by shadows, her voice careful.

"I don't think so. I'm not sure I can find a reason for this war. I thought there may have been one once, very early on; but not for a long while and certainly not since I've become a nurse."

I sighed. It was exactly the sentiment I was afraid of, but hearing it spoken aloud, in that soft and low pitched voice and filled with that disarming genuinely, I felt myself embracing it.

"You are right," I said, devoid of irony. "It was for nothing."

"Oh, but not _all_ for naught. The war has come, unfortunately so. It has come and it has changed our country and everyone in it. I know I am not the same person I was when this war began, and so there must have been a purpose."

I laughed. "To give us occupation for the next century, turning everything back to just the way it was before?"

"No, no. The world has changed, but not because of the war, but because it always does. The war only accelerated things. And we must move forward with it, not keep wishing it back."

It seemed an odd logic, for our sort. People like her, like me, must rue change as we rue any disruption in our way of life, in the status quo in which we ruled supreme, with chief authority, power, and wealth. Her eyes took on a vacancy, and I had a vague notion that there was more on her mind that she would not share, and I wondered:

_What will you be in twenty years?_

I could have asked the same question of myself, and though there was no way I could have known it, that would be the last time I would ever speak with the Lady Sybil Crawley, as she was known to me then, and as she decamped into the night, garbed in muted greys and her secrets, I silently wished us both our freedom.

* * *

Lady Sybil's words stayed with me the next morning. They sat there, at the base of my skull, took up residence in every ongoing thought. They were with me when I arose the next morning, intent on partaking of the scheduled exercises for the first time since my devolution so many weeks ago.

I stood with the others as we stretched upon the lawn, feeling the blood course through my veins, vigor reinstating itself, a restive attitude in my limbs that made me eager for movement, and something more.

It was time for another attempt. I felt to be on the precipice of something great. Another failure, perhaps, but more likely, I decided another chance.

"On you go now." Nurse Waverly's smile was not the curse it once was, and I prepared myself, sticks held securely in my hands, able bodies at either side ready to catch me at the first sign of a tremble. I at first held my breath as I attempted to balance, then let out a slow current of air as I lifted my able leg.

One step. My foot hit the ground.

The leg bearing my artificial limb raised an inch off the ground.

I nearly collapsed, the weight and imbalance of my other half buckling my knee. I was held upright by a pair of strong hands.

"Thank you, Sergeant Barrow," I managed through staggering breaths.

One step. A single step before I collapsed and was again in need of assistance. A miserable attempt which carried me no further than a fall onto the ground.

And yet it was enough.

I rested heavily in my chair afterwards, feeling alive for the first time since I awakened to the sight of a pair of bloodied elbows, unmindful of the tears in my eyes.

* * *

There was no laughter in her voice as she said, "My my; look what the cat's drug in."

"Very funny, Mary, but I decided that if Mr. Napier can find the will to ride again I simply have no more excuses."

"You had no excuses even before Mr. Napier astounded us all with his triumph."

I laughed. "Don't listen to her, Lady Edith. There's no shame in this day and age of eschewing the more traditional sports, and from what I hear you prefer more modern transportation."

Lady Edith blushed while sister smiled. "You speak of her great driving habits, I assume. Rest assured that our chauffeur has kept our motors safely out of Edith's hands for at least half a year."

"Say what you will, but I am perfectly capable driver. Branson only worries about the price of petrol these days."

"Enough, ladies. Put aside your banter. I've been idle all morning, and now I'm ready to ride and I won't be detained a second longer!"

Bravado, of course, is all well and good; but it could not hide the fact that my pace would be painfully slow, not exceeding that of a slow trot.

Lady Mary took the lead, and we followed. "I warn you Lady Edith," I said to her as we departed. "I'm still not very good."

"All the better, then. We can both of us fail together!" she said with a laugh.

I had to laugh as well, for there she sat, fumbling with her reins, clearly uncomfortable as she sat upon her mount and rode him with a bouncing, awkward gait. She looked more ill at ease than I, and it emboldened my spirits.

Lady Mary looked back, calling, "How goes it, Mr. Napier. Is it any easier?"

"Yes, it is." I turned to Lady Edith. "And how do you fare?"

"It's miserable," she said, though not disheartened, and sped her mount after her sister, beckoning me to follow.

The cloudiness seemed to empty from my mind that morning, and I resolved then to write to my father. I was not yet ready to leave Downton, but perhaps I was ready to forgive. Exactly who was in need of my grace, I could not yet pinpoint. My country, my father, myself; if the entire world held enough malice and ill will to ravage its surface with war, then perhaps it was the entire world that would need my forgiveness. And I was ready to give it.

The sun continued to rise. Morning again, a new dawn. And although I was not healed, not completely, and my self-awareness was acute enough to know that perhaps I never would be, I welcomed it. And so we rode on, the three of us, into the rising sun, and there lay to our backs the west which lived on behind us, behind us, still always to remain, but behind us.

END

* * *

_I forgot to add these A/N, but I wanted to share that horseback riding is in fact a therapeutic device used for veterans who have suffered amputation, as well as a tool to help them regain muscle control in order to learn how to walk again. I don't know if it was used during our time period, so there my be some artistic license, but I just thought it would be interesting to share. Queen Mary's Hospital was the premiere hospital for convalescing amputees during the war._


End file.
